Call Me Carmela: New Psychological Suspense

Call Me Carmela, a Dot Meyerhoff Mystery by Ellen Kirschman

An Excerpt + Book & Author Info + A Giveaway!

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Call Me Carmela

A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery

Police therapist Dot Meyerhoff helps a young woman find her birth parents and unburies dark family secrets in this psychological thriller.

Police psychologist Dot Meyerhoff’s caseload is usually filled with cops—which is why she’s hesitant to help an adopted teenager locate her birth parents. But the teen’s godmother is Dot’s dear friend Fran and a police widow to boot. How could Dot possibly say no?

Once Dot starts digging into the case, though, she’s drawn into a murky world of illegal adoptions and the choices a young pregnant woman might make as a last resort. Soon there’s only one thing Dot knows for sure: the painful truth of what happened all those years ago might heal one family—but it’s certain to destroy another.

Praise for Call Me Carmela:

“Ellen Kirschmann’s front row criminal justice insight is woven throughout the mystery, and in Dot Meyerhoff, she’s created a hero the world needs: smart, big-hearted, and complex. This is a story that will stick with you long after you close the book.”
~ Edgar-nominated author Jess Lourey

“Have a seat in Fran and Eddie’s Café and you are among friends who care about what happens to a teen desperately seeking the truth of her adoption. Ellen Kirschman seamlessly brings her expertise and empathy as a therapist for first responders in creating her fully realized amateur sleuth, Dr. Dot Meyerhoff. Call Me Carmela is like the perfect morning coffee, rich, smooth, and nuanced and leaving you craving for another cup.”
~ Naomi Hirahara, USA Today bestselling and Mary Higgins Clark award-winning author of Clark and Division and Evergreen

“Ellen Kirschman sees into people’s hearts: not just those of the victims, or of the good guys, but the hearts of all her characters. With a rare delicacy of language she lets us know that no one’s innocent, but no one’s past redemption, either — except those who refuse to try.”
~ SJ Rozan, best-selling author of The Mayors Of New York

“Call Me Carmela is a firecracker of a read, a tour de force that immerses you in the characters’ lives with empathy and insight. I couldn’t put it down until I reached the very last page–I will be back for more Dot Meyerhoff. Highly recommended!”
~ Deborah Chrombie NYT bestselling author of the Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James novels

“This latest in the Dot Meyerhoff series gets everything right, as we’ve come to expect from author Ellen Kirschman. Psychologically astute, its blend of intriguing mystery, topical subject matter and well-rounded characters make this a must-read for anyone who loves a great story.”
~ Dennis Palumbo, psychotherapist and author of the Daniel Rinaldi mysteries

Book Details:

Genre: Psychological/Domestic Suspense
Published by: Open Road Media
Publication Date: November 26, 2024
Number of Pages: 292
ISBN: 9781504095754 (ISBN10: 1504095758)
Series: A Dot Meyerhoff Mystery, #5

To purchase a copy of Call Me Carmela, click any of the following links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | BookShop.org | Goodreads | Open Road Media

Read an excerpt of Call Me Carmela:

1

Fran and Eddie’s café is a shrine to the past. Formica counters, stools tipsy with age, and scarred tabletops. Nothing’s changed here but the person frying eggs and fipping pancakes with a Sheetrock trowel. It used to be Fran, now it’s retired cop Eddie Rimbauer, his face red from the heat. I’m dropping by, as I ofen do, to get cofee and a bagel to go before heading to my ofce. Te screen door to the restaurant bangs open several times in a row. It’s not quite lunchtime, but cops eat when they can, not when they should. At Fran’s they can eat in peace, without being accosted by irate citizens complaining about trafc tickets they most certainly didn’t deserve.

Eddie waves me over. “Just the woman I want to see.” He leans across the counter, holding his trowel in the air. “Something’s going on with Fran. I caught her this morning, hiding out in the back booth, crying. She thinks I didn’t notice, but you can’t fool an old cop. When I asked her what’s wrong, she just clammed up.”

Fran’s had a lot to cry about in her life, but mostly she’s sturdy and cheerful. Always good for a joke. Te café has been her bully pulpit for decades, long before her husband, BG, was killed in the line of duty chasing a twenty-year-old armed felon who had robbed a convenience store. It was only the second line of duty death at the Kenilworth Police Department in ffy years. A photo of him in uniform and the glass-encased American fag they handed to Fran at his funeral sit high on a shelf over the long front counter. Never one to—as she says—“play the widow card,” she’s always ready to help anyone, especially her cop customers.

“Look who’s here.” Fran’s voice reaches me from her booth in the back where she’s rolling fatware in cloth napkins. “I thought you were retired.” I walk toward the back. From a few feet away, I can see that her face is blotchy and her eyes pufy.

“Stay home and let Eddie run this place unsupervised? I been watching that boy since he was a child. I’m not letting him out of my sight. At least I’m sitting down for a change.” Fran’s legs, swollen and riddled with varicose veins, were just about to give out when Eddie put in his papers at KPD and took over.

Fran tells me to grab a cup of cofee and sit. And while I’m at it, pour her one too. As soon as I do, Eddie joins us. “Too early in the morning for the doc to look at your ugly mug,” Fran says. “She needs more cofee frst.”

Tis isn’t bickering. It’s love, pure and simple. It’s how they are, the two of them, a widow with bad legs and a recovered drunk, twice divorced, still mourning the only thing he had lef in life, his job as a cop. I’d worried Eddie wouldn’t survive retire ment, that he’d kill himself or start drinking again, but here he is, king of the café. Cops fock from all over to hear his war stories.

“Don’t you have anything else to do, Eddie? Prep work? Taste today’s soup? Wiggle the Jell-O?”

Since he’s taken over, Eddie has expanded Fran’s menu. Afer what we’d all been through last year, Frank and I invited Eddie and Fran to our wedding in Iowa. Eddie went crazy for the local food. Despite Fran’s opposition, he put Iowa potato salad and three kinds of Jell-O on the café menu.

“How is my man Frank? Tell him I said hello. I’m going to be calling him one of these days to talk about remodeling this joint.” “Will that be before or afer you call the bank for a loan?” Fran says. “I’m not fronting the money. Tis place is fne as it is.” “Tis place is older than you. It needs a total do-over. If there’s any money lef, you can get a facelif.” He turns to me. “What’s up at the PD? Cops still turning the other way when they see you coming?” Eddie swipes at the table with the corner of his apron. “I know a couple of guys who are in the middle of nasty divorces. Tey’d rather talk to me than a psychologist. I don’t charge for my time plus I’m an expert on nasty divorces.” “Are you fnished?” Fran looks disgusted. “Get back in the kitchen and make yourself useful.”

“See what I got to put up with? Twenty-plus years on the job chasing crooks and directing trafc in the rain is nothing compared to working for Ms. Slave Driver over here who forgets she’s not the one in charge anymore, I am.” He snaps his towel against the tabletop and storms of in a mock rage.

Fran shakes her head. “He’s never going to grow up. Never. Still doesn’t have a life. All he did was trade his addiction to police work for an addiction to this place.”

“Better than his addiction to alcohol,” I say. “What’s going on, Fran? Eddie said you were upset but you wouldn’t say why.” “None of his business.”

“Your eyes are red and your face is spotty.”

“I’m old. Tose are age spots.”

“Tose are not age spots. Talk to me, Fran.”

I stretch my hands across the table. She reaches back. Hers are sandpaper-rough, the backs covered with knobby veins. I’ve developed an abiding affection for Fran’s tough-on-the-outside, sof-on-the-inside personality. Te fortitude it took for her to keep going afer BG was killed. How she honors his legacy and love for police work by mothering the cops who came afer him. I have warm feelings for Eddie, too, as erratic as he can be in his still wobbly sobriety.

“It’s my eighteen-year-old goddaughter, Ava Marie. She’s in trouble. Tings haven’t been great for her at home, but, until a few days ago, I didn’t know how bad. Her parents think she’s gone of the rails. They had a big fight and she took of. Nobody’s seen or heard from her for two days. They think she might be headed my way.” Fran pulls her hands back. “Tis is killing me.” “Has anyone called the police?”

“They live in Moss Point on the coast. It’s a little one-horse town with a one-horse sherif. He thinks she’s a runaway. Told her parents to give her a few days to get over being mad and she’ll come home.”

“Tere is no waiting period in California for reporting a missing person. He has to take the report.”

“He knows that. Ava’s father told him. Dan used to be a KPD cop. BG was his field training officer. Te only way anybody in that two-bit agency is going to find her is if she runs in front of a patrol car. I keep thinking about that coastline, that skinny road over the mountains. What if she drives of the road? Or over a cliff? Or into the ocean?”

“Has she ever tried to kill herself?” One of my psychology journals just issued a report that teenage girls are experiencing record high levels of violence, sadness, and suicide. I keep this unhappy bit of information to myself. Statistics are about groups. Fran’s goddaughter is not a number.

“Not that I know of. Except now I don’t know what I don’t know. She used to tell me everything until about a year ago.”

“What happened a year ago?”

“She was adopted. I think she started asking about her birth parents.”

“How can I help?”

“When they find her, could you talk to her?”

“Doesn’t she have a therapist?”

“Her parents tried to get her to go to counseling. She refused.” “So why would she agree to see me?”

“I’ll tell her you are good people. She’ll listen, she trusts me. At least she used to.”

“I don’t have any experience with teenagers.”

“Not to worry. If you can help cops who don’t trust civilians and hate asking for help, you can help anybody.”

Ellen Kirschman

Ellen Kirschman, Ph.D. is a police psychologist. and clinician at the First Responders Support Network. She is a member of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, The American Psychological Association, Mystery Writers of America, Sisters in Crime, and the Public Safety Writers Association.

She is the recipient of the California Psychological Association’s award for distinguished contribution to psychology as well as the American Psychological Association’s award for outstanding contribution to the practice of police and public safety psychology.

Ellen brings her expertise and decades-long experience to both fiction and non-fiction. She is the author of three non-fiction books and a five-book mystery series featuring police psychologist Dot Meyerhoff.

To learn more about Ellen, click any of the following links: EllenKirschman.com, Goodreads, BookBub – @EllenKirschman, Instagram – @ellen.kirschman.copdoc & Facebook

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